Well at least one parent understood it..heheh I think my daughter who is in 2nd right now will love the composition program, but she LOVES to write. My 8th grade son on the other hand has a terrible time. We signed up with the EES and so far so good. He at least feels comfortable enough with our EES's feedback and is not in tears (product of public school I'm afraid to say) He now has a better grasp of writing since he is not writing essays out of thin air so to speak. Marita gave us that great advice, she said, "Have the child write about something he has read," which is how I understand the compostion program is set up.

I just did not want to overwhelm him with starting the homeschooling process, this is his first year at home. I have to say that I am very pleased with the Kolbe curriculum and we have been sticking to it pretty religiously. Although, I have to admit that Intro to Chem and Physics is proving to be a bit difficult, so that subject we are taking real slow.

I have to admit that Intro to Chem and Physics is proving to be a bit difficult, so that subject we are taking real slow.

Ana- It's a toughie for sure! Hoping your son is also doing Algebra 1 concurrently... if he isn't, then I'd recommend holding off on it until 9th grade. Definitely use the course plan for additional help and guidance. I have tried to round out where I thought the text was lacking... and of course feel free to ask questions as you go along.

To anyone that is struggling delving into the classical composition, I beg you to please call our office and speak to Marita. She is wonderful and can help you to get over the hump. It is really a "method", like Shalford said, and for that reason can really be intimidating when you first receive the plans.

We started Classical Comp Fable last week and it went really well. My daughter is in grade six.

It is a different way of teaching writing than what many people might be used to, but we really enjoyed it. My daughter picked it up very quickly. I agree with the previous posters... once you try it out for a few weeks, it will become much easier. Don't be scared off by the funny greek words or the strange terminology. For the children, it is much less intimidating way of learning to write, because the don't have to think up the 'content'.. they can just master the skill of writing. A bit like trying to teach a child how to play the piano without any songs to practice (imagine having to learn to compose a song and how to play at the same time?... this method of teaching isolates the skills so they can work on one thing at a time).

Here's the structure of what we did each day (to try and speed things up a bit so we can finish fable quicker and move onto narrative). Other families will do it in different ways, but I thought this might be helpful to someone.

Monday:
1) Mom reads fable aloud while DD follows along in the book.
2) We discuss the fable, talking about words she might not know, the moral of the story and what it means, who the characters are, and briefly discuss the moments of recognition (moments in the story where the author was able to draw a picture in our minds that reminded us of something in real life that we have seen... so I asked my daughter about the ant running nimbly around in the sunshine.. did this remind her of a time she has seen an ant running around on the sidewalk? -- all these examples are in the teacher's guide btw). We also discussed the moment of reversal (when the ant who thought he was so powerful realized how little he was).
3) DD tells the story back to me in her own words (orally).
4) DD outlined the story on paper. First we talked about dividing the story up into Beginning, Middle and End, and once we found those three main points, then we added in some more details under each section. This is the part that I found could have used more instruction and guidance for the child. Outlining is a skill that can be learned gradually, but if they have had no experience with it, it would be hard to expect them to fill out a three level outline right at the start. Anyways, we did this step together for the first fable.

Tuesday:
1) DD worked on the varying exercise. First, for each important word in the sentence, I had her make a list of synonyms. Then I asked her to rewrite each sentence three different ways, keeping the meaning the same, but using different words or descriptions. She enjoyed this exercise, and we talked about why we were doing it (to help learn how to use words in different ways so the readers of our stories don't get bored etc.)

2)After she showed me her sentences, we laughed at a few of them... "The hurricane ran at the man like an overstimulated chicken" (?? what a funny image that conjured up in our heads!). Then, I read to her the suggested sentences in the teacher's manual so she could get an idea of other ways that one could write the sentences.

Wednesday:
1) DD took out her outline and rewrote the story in her own words on paper. She was supposed to follow her outline and make sure that she included all of the important parts of the story. I asked her to write it double spaced so we would have room to add in the figures of description later.

2) I read over it with her, and we checked spelling, punctuation and grammar.

Thursday:
1) We talked about the funny greek words. She caught on right away... we talked about 'recognition' that we looked for in the original story, and how the author can use various images to help the reader have a vivid picture in their minds. We brainstormed different ways of describing trees (dendographia), wind (anemographia) and someone's character (ethopoeia). (I read to her some examples in the teacher guide as well). (because we are trying to get through fable quicker, we combined exercise 3 and 4 into one day).

2) She inserted her own descriptions right into the story she wrote on weds. Because her story was written double spaced, I allowed her to simply add them in on the blank in-between lines without having to rewrite the entire story.

3) I read through it with her and we corrected spelling/grammar.

Friday:
1) We discussed rewriting the fable starting from the end and working backwards. I told her that the teacher's manual said that kids might 'groan' but that it's easier than she thinks, she just has to try, and she accepted the challenge. First, I told her the story of the 3 little pigs backwards so she would get the idea... (As the wolf was falling down the chimney into the hot water, he couldn't believe how the events of the day had landed him in such hot water. He remembered how the three pigs were inside the brick house and how excited he was when he huffed and puffed and tried to blow down the house. You see, he had just successfully blown down the stick house and chased the 2nd little pig all the way to where he was now, and before that, he had blown down the house made of straw... ) and we discussed why practicing writing backwards will help her be a better writer, because you can easily add interest to your stories so people will wan to keep reading. The teacher's manual is very helpful with an example of what this might look like.

2) DD took out her outline and rewrote her story backwards. Afterwards, we discussed it, looked at her spelling and grammar.

3) I asked her to rewrite a good copy of any version of the story we had worked on all week to be done by monday morning. She chose to recopy the inverted version. If we had time, or she wanted to, she could have illustrated the good copy.

hope that helps!!

melanie

Mon Aug 29, 2011 12:38 am

CleoQc

Joined: 07 May 2010Posts: 105

that sounds so interesting, I will have to reconsider my writing program!!!

Mon Aug 29, 2011 5:38 am

MilMomof3

Joined: 20 Feb 2010Posts: 23

Rewrite??

How many times is the student supposed to rewrite the fable?

Mon Aug 29, 2011 6:42 am

Catholicmommy

Joined: 21 Apr 2011Posts: 40

For Fable: (keeping in mind that the fables are very short, so it doesn't take very long to write and only really takes up between 1/2 to a whole page).

In total, it's four times... If you are following the book exactly. The student will rewrite it once in her own words, a second time with added embellishments, a third time with more added embellishments and a final time writing it starting from the end and moving to the beginning (like flashbacks). Now, if they were typing it, the second and the third times (when they are adding in the embellishments) could just be added without having to rewrite.

For us, so she didn't have to rewrite the entire story over again, I asked her to do it double spaced to leave room for her to squeeze in the descriptions/embellishments on the following day.

The way I did it (which is doing the two weeks of work over one week), she wrote it once on the first day in her own words (following her outline she made). Then she added in the figures of description (embellishments) to her original story without rewriting the whole thing. Then she wrote it backwards. So that's a total of writing the entire thing out twice, but adding in extra things one day. If you wanted them to rewrite it in a final copy that would be three times.

hth

Mon Aug 29, 2011 7:26 am

apavey

Joined: 11 Jul 2009Posts: 6

THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU, Melanie, for taking the time to post your approach to Classical Composition! We started our school year without having the text and workbook yet, and so have had to put off this subject. I just received the texts yesterday and have begun the process of intellectually digesting all of it. You have SAVED me so much time by sharing your example! We, too, will be trying to advance through at a quicker pace than the lesson plans as my daughter is in sixth grade. After getting a little bogged down in the teacher manual, you have lifted me up. God bless You!

Sat Sep 10, 2011 3:09 am

Catholicmommy

Joined: 21 Apr 2011Posts: 40

apavey wrote:

THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU, Melanie, for taking the time to post your approach to Classical Composition! We started our school year without having the text and workbook yet, and so have had to put off this subject. I just received the texts yesterday and have begun the process of intellectually digesting all of it. You have SAVED me so much time by sharing your example! We, too, will be trying to advance through at a quicker pace than the lesson plans as my daughter is in sixth grade. After getting a little bogged down in the teacher manual, you have lifted me up. God bless You!

I'm happy to help I know I was confused at the beginning too so I hoped I could help someone else. It's actually a delightful program and we have really been enjoying it. We did Classical Writing (CW) Homer last year and I am enjoying this one so much more. It really focuses in on the writing skills, whereas CW spends time in other areas of grammar etc... which, imho take away from the work that could be spent writing. Have fun with it! Because the fables are short it's not overwhelming to the students.

Now I want to get my hands on the third level to try and figure it out. I plan on doing fable for the first quarter or so, and narrative for the rest of the year. Then in grade 7 we'll start Cheia.

blessings,

melanie

Sat Sep 10, 2011 4:37 pm

Kjones

Joined: 14 May 2010Posts: 8

happy kids

I am thrilled to say that my older two girls and I LOVE CC. We started Fable with my 5th and 7th grader and are progressing pretty well. We have to race through the material because we only get 30 minutes a day to work together due to younger kiddos in the house...but that 30 minutes of time is very well spent. At the beginning, I was very nervous....the new terms seemed overwhelming...to combat the scare of new words and as suggested in the course plans, I make up flashcards for each new term and hang them up on our wall as we go along. It works...my own vocabulary is growing right along with my kids. Writing is now my girls' favorite class..it's so much fun!!